Tuesday, May 19, 2015

I never watched True Detective when it was originally airing, nor have I seen it up until now. All I knew about the series prior to beginning was that it starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in critically acclaimed roles for both of them and that it was about detectives solving a murder. Little did I know that by taking the plunge and firing up the first episode of this show would start me down the path of creating this column. Spoilers ahead.

While
not as visceral or explosively emotional as the first episode, “Seeing Things”
takes the bits about Hart and Cohle that we already know and expounds upon them
while the duo investigates the church tied to the murder.

This
second episode spends too much time in the current-day. The shocking end to “The
Long Bright Dark” isn’t even mentioned, and much of what these interviewing detectives
discuss with Hart and Cohle seems purposely written to bring more personal
information to the surface. It’s subtle, but Pizzolatto’s
characterization suffers a bit by feeling more forced this time around.
Learning that Cohle’s daughter died in a car accident should have been enough
to propel a character arc for a single episode, but Pizzolatto opts instead to
lay all the cards out and offer more details about the event as the episode
continues. True Detective is a show
that offers as much narrative by what’s not said as what is, and adding more
and more to Cohle’s daughter’s death actually detracts from the
overall effect.

Hart
is a man who lies to himself about everything in his life. I was actually
hesitant about my initial analysis of Hart as a man who’s happiness is defined
by his worldview, desires to understand his world more, yet
doesn’t have anything on which to base said desire. “Seeing Things” makes it
clear that Hart has a definition of what happiness is supposed to be, and he’s
found a comfortable station in which to live out that definition. Cohle’s very
presence challenges Hart’s concrete framework, eroding the foundations that
Hart has spent his entire life learning to accept and value.

The
scene between Hart and his mistress (Alexandra Daddario) is tragic, but not because Hart is cheating
on his wife – that was a given. Hart’s response to Lisa's pragmatic point that their fun little affair won’t last forever -- and that she’ll eventually find a man she can marry and start a new chapter in
her life -- is emotionally stunted and a little pathetic. In Hart’s world, he and Lisa continue to secretly rendezvous
indefinitely; he’d rather continue living in an unrealistic paradigm than ask
himself the hard questions.

Cohle has seemingly become more
steadfast in his patterns. His smoking habit is a tell that shows when the man
without emotion is nervous or faced with a difficult question, usually one he
can’t answer right away. Seeing as this entire show is about a giant question
that can’t be answered immediately, Cohle spends much of his onscreen time
with a Camel between his lips. As a smoker, seeing a more realistic portrayal of
the habits of a pack-a-day smoker adds a level of authenticity that doesn’t
come around often. It’s a small element in a massive tapestry of symbolism and
hidden meanings, but everything about True
Detective feels purposeful, so why not Cohle’s addictions?

I never watched True Detective when it was originally airing, nor have I seen it up until now. All I knew about the series prior to beginning was that it starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in critically acclaimed roles for both of them and that it was about detectives solving a murder. Little did I know that by taking the plunge and firing up the first episode of this show would start me down the path of creating this column.

"The Long Bright Dark"

Character
development is a serious problem for modern television dramas. Too often,
essential roles are atrociously characterized, leading viewers to rely on the
story alone to carry a show. True
Detective not only disregards this unfortunate trend, it spits in the face
of the very idea. In one episode, both Detectives Hart and Cohle are incredibly
and astonishingly fleshed out without show creator and writer Nick Pizzolatto losing any of the core depth that frames
the story structure.

The
story itself – a murder case involving a ritualized killing and occult display
– moves at a snails pace because it must. Real murder investigations take a lot
of time, and Pizzolatto does a phenomenal job of making a
little bit of information feel as important and necessary to the case as any
new piece of evidence would in real life. Crimes of this magnitude aren't solved in 45 minutes.

Matthew
McConaughey’s Rustin Cohle is a paradox that acknowledges and accepts his own duality. He
doesn’t care what others believe about the world because his personal philosophy
points to a universal truth that precludes opinions and emotions; Cohle's an
asshole because he doesn’t care. It’s this same “flaw” that makes him such an incredibly observant detective. At the beginning of "The Long Bright Dark", Hart
(Woody Harrelson) warns Cohle of adding his own narrative to the case,
something that quickly becomes a moot point as viewers are shown how Cohle sees the
world; he could never attach emotion
to a case because he doesn’t believe in emotional nuance. This doesn’t mean he
can’t feel anything, only that he usually disregards those feelings.

Harrelson
as Detective Martin Hart is a testament to the man’s acting chops. Hart is a
Louisiana man through and through, but his good, Christian, country boy
persuasions are coming under scrutiny by a man he doesn’t even like. Hart is an
everyman that doesn’t yet understand that he wants to understand more. Hart has
convinced himself that he’s happy, when in reality, the weight of his job
crushes him far more than he wants to admit, and Cohle’s unique worldview
challenges everything Hart has ever known.

The
dialogue, especially, is what makes “The Long Bright Dark” such an effective
and engrossing first episode. Clever, witty dialogue and comedy aren’t mutually
exclusive, and Pizzolatto knows this very basic concept. Cohle’s lines are
meant to seemingly refined, only rough when examined closely. Hart wears his
heart on his sleeve because it isn’t incredibly vivid anyway. The interactions
between these two characters foreshadows a long case that pits their
ideological differences against each other.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Welcome to RE:Analyze, a column about revisiting past television shows, music, and films. My previous solo endeavor, The Comic Book Revue, was a ton of fun to write and maintain. I had a great audience and was able to talk about comic books as much as I wanted. Over the past few years, I've worked on a few different sites leading to my current position as Editor-in-Chief of Infinite Comix. There, I not only get to write about comic books, I also get to tell other people to write about comic books.RE:Analyze is designed to be my column for everything else. I watch a fair amount of television, a good share of films, and I listen to a lot of music. Some of the content featured in the column is material I'm experiencing for the first time, while others I'll be revisiting for the first (or second or third or millionth) time.

To kick things off, I'll be covering HBO's seminal True Detective Season One, created and written by Nick Pizzolatto, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. After season one of True Detective, I'll be covering various episodes of Dan Harmon's Community, my favorite television show and one that begs repeat viewings. Beyond that, I'll cover NewsRadio (Various), Black Mountain's In The Future, Fargo, Happy Endings (Various), Rise of the Planet of the Apes, TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain, Mulaney (Season One), On the Road, Broad City (Season One), Wet Hot American Summer, The Mars Volta's De-Loused in the Comatorium, The Blacklist (Season One), and so on.